Posts Tagged ‘Adverse Drug Reactions’

Lost on the Sea of Medicine

Modern Myths: Doctors and patients lost on the Sea of Medicine, an illustration for a story by Dr. David Healy.

“The clinics were different now to what they had been… The woman with burning hands, the mother with the autistic baby or the asexual son, were in the same place as her — no-one wanted to know them. Was there any way to unite all these people, each marooned on their own island, this new Archipelago of the Shipwrecked?”

The Miracle of the Chemical Cure

Modern Myths: A trip back to the founding of the Church of Psycho-pharmacology, an illustration for a story by Dr. David Healy.

In 1957, interested in the fuss surrounding the new tranquilizers, she [Crusoe] dropped in to a World Congress of Psychiatry Meeting being held that year in Zurich. There was an extraordinary buzz — the excitement surrounding the discovery of chlorpromazine was growing not fading. It really did seem like a cure for schizophrenia or the harbinger of a cure that would arrive any day now.

The meeting was full of chatter about the next wonder drug about to appear and what it all meant…

…

It was openly accepted that the new College had been created by Sandoz, who had convened the Supper in Zurich. One delegate even joked that Sandoz’s boss, Rothlin, the President of the College, was the head of a new religion – a Pope. Rothlin though was a businessman – well maybe that’s what Pope’s were. Not someone anyone thought was likely to have had LSD himself.

Sandoz and other companies bankrolled the meeting, paid for the delegates to be there, paid for the delegates to be there, and put on the coaches that took them from Rome to Castel Gandolfo.”

Is There Life After Meds?

After 20 years on antidepressants, is it possible to become drug-free? Psychiatric drug withdrawal symptoms — like burning feet, akathisia and emotional hypersensitivity — are daunting, but recovery is possible as shown by this story of one woman’s path (Katie B-T) to redemption.

“After 20 years on antidepressants, I decided I wanted to taper off. It was important for me to see what life was like without them and if I could claim more of my sexuality. I had no idea what I was in store for….

“I started SSRI’s when I was 12 years old. I haven’t gotten to try out and experiment with what I like and don’t like in relationships with the new feedback my body gives me. Some of my interpersonal dynamics related to my sexuality never got worked out because I didn’t know they existed. Now I have support to explore these concerns in therapy, playing catch-up, but knowing that I won’t have to go through life missing out on this important part of myself.”

What’s at Stake?

Drug companies maximize the sales of new drugs by hyping their benefits while downplaying significant risks. In 2010 the European Medicines Agency began releasing patient-level data from the clinical trials used to approve new medicines in Europe – a development hailed by American, and European researchers and researchers around the world as a major step towards drug safety.

This process has been shut down by a lawsuit taken by two American corporations – AbbVie, makers of Humira, the number one selling medication in the world with projected sales of $10 billion in 2013; and InterMune, whose pulmonary-fibrosis drug Esbriet has recently been approved in Europe at a cost of over $40,000 per year.

Translations:
The posters are being translated into many languages including French, Dutch, Hindi, Kannada, Spanish, Mandarin, Italian, and German as part of RxISK‘s world-wide campaign for open data on pharmaceutical research and drug safety trials.

Yes, “death” is a possible side effect

Humira is a monoclonal antibody – one of the new biological agents that acts on the immune system. Its side effects can be so nasty it has a black box warning on it.

Despite this, it’s on its way to becoming the best-selling drug of all time. You don’t get to be a best-seller on this scale without pushing the marketing envelope way beyond those who are seriously enough ill to warrant taking risks with a dangerous drug. Without running a marketing campaign that is to old-style drug marketing as a HumVie is to one of the smaller European cars.

The company have already been warned by the FDA for promoting Humira for milder conditions and misleading about its safety. The marketing includes many emotive messages – with images suggesting children are repelled by a single patch of psoriasis.

Half-Truths

“There are many of us with bad Rheumatoid Arthritis or Crohn’s Disease who would gladly take these risks, especially if the drug produced a real benefit. We might be much less inclined to do for milder conditions. But in all cases the trade-off should be ours.

Ideally we should be helped by our doctors and pharmacists, but doctors and pharmacists who truly know what the problems can be. When AbbVie hide their clinical trial data, they make anyone who was involved in a clinical trial of their drug or a doctor prescribing it or pharmacist dispensing it into a potential accomplice to injury and perhaps homicide because the missing data is used to argue that ‘we’ve done trials and look there is no risk’.”

Diabetes Type 2: Sweet Lies

“High blood sugars won’t kill rapidly like diabetes does. Very severely raised blood sugars over a prolonged period can raise the risk of heart attacks or strokes just as very high blood pressure or cholesterol levels can in some people. Very severely raised blood sugars can lead to thirst, hunger and infections but very few people with type 2 diabetes experience this. For most people type 2 diabetes is a disease of numbers not of symptoms. For most people there is no good evidence that treating these numbers with the latest diabetes drug improves health.”

The Myth of Floxing

The Myth of Floxing
We all like to believe that medicines work like a single magic dart that’s focused and targeted on the primary therapeutic effect.

But with most drugs, it’s more like you shooting yourself with hundreds of poisoned arrows. Some hit the target, but many, many others will hit and attack other parts of your body’s vital systems — some of which, as first glance, seem to be completely unrelated.

The Fluoroquinolones class of drugs may be the worst offenders that have ever been approved by the FDA. Branded with names like Levaquin, Cipro and Avelox, they provide a horrific example of how a medicine can cripple and affect every system in the body. And what’s worse, the side effects causes by Fluoroquinolones do not end when you stop taking the drug, leaving many people crippled for years, and even decades after taking just one pill. Read more about this in Dr. David Healy’s post on RxISK.org: The Myth of the Magic Bullet: Flox Tox

Quinolones (fluoroquinolones) are a class of antibiotics that are currently one of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics in the world, given out in hundreds, if not thousands, of prescriptions daily. They are very powerful medications prescribed to treat a wide variety of infections but were never meant to be used as a first line of defense against routine infections, which is how they are often prescribed today. Like all antibiotics, quinolones, have the ability to cause side effects. However, what differentiates this class of antibiotics from others is that quinolones can cause severe adverse reactions that can disable the healthiest of individuals creating long lasting injuries.